


Friends with oneself

by ThatEvergreenGirl



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Legilimency, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Obscurial Newt Scamander, Obscurus (Harry Potter), Occlumency, Sharing Minds, Sick Newt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatEvergreenGirl/pseuds/ThatEvergreenGirl
Summary: Newt wakes to find himself in Tina's room, who is quite concerned with the white eyes he's been sporting while he sleep walks and the temperature weirdness going on around him. But let's not jump to assumptions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm the worst, and didn't edit. Don't write me off, guys! Just an idea that popped into my head, and I had to try it out. Now I'm not exactly sure where I'll be taking this, but I have some different routes I could follow. This story will probably be short, but more than a chapter. I won't be posting the next for another week or so though, because finals! (shivers) whooo... did someone let a Dementor in the room? 
> 
> Anywho; comments, give me comments. And ideas if you have something great that you don't want to use yourself, I'll be happy to credit you.
> 
> P.S sorry for the weird line formatting. Still getting used to AO3. :p

He swept across the wooden floor boards with a soft hushing sound made by millions of grains of magical content clicking against each other. The woman was asleep. Her dark hair was a burred mess of gentle curls around her face. As if sensing his presence, she frowned in her sleep and tossed to her side to face the wall. He gathered himself up to the ceiling and misted down the wall to once again confront her face to face. The tendrils of himself were slow and thin. He'd once pulsed with power. No longer. Never again, that power was not his to start with. He'd been helpless against it.

Oh, it was agony. He should have just let what was left of him wither; he couldn't last long like that. Split into pieces like spatters of blood scattered through the air. But it hurt. So. Very. Much. So he'd brought his consciousness into a corner alley and knit himself back together. How long had that taken? Days? Years? A lifetime. A lifetime of existing as pain itself; without body, without throat to scream, or mind to tell himself to stop. Let go. Save yourself from more suffering. From being unwhole. Unable to die.

And the woman had tried to stop the initial torture from happening, hadn't she? Her nose wrinkled and stress lines divided her forehead. She'd called out for them to stop, to… no. That wasn't it. It was him she'd called to. Tried to reign him back from his murderous cloud of rage. Pull him back into submission. Into obedience. Like a mad dog in a cage fight to be led back to his crate. To be contained in docile state where he could be used all over again, because that was all people wanted, wasn't it? To manipulate one another. To punish. To rule. Well, it hadn't been enough either way. It was agony.

He could probably still kill her. Just settle down alongside her in embrace. She'd suffocate on his cold darkness immediately. That was wrong. Sick. But he'd done it already… he'd already killed people. Before the witches had blasted him to pieces, he hadn't been able to recall all that he'd done during the black outs when the stress of repression had become too much. But now that he existed as the creature which had consumed him, he knew and remembered everything: the malice with which he had brought chaos over the campaign party, the savage righteousness he'd felt when the he'd infused Shawn with his poisonous energy. And Mary Lou. The children, possibly. A sea of grief boiled through him. He didn't deserve any sort of champion. He was a monster. A freak. And a murdering one at that.

The coiling darkness writhed and expanded, snapping electricity through the room in angry purple arcs. The street lights outside were gutted. He'd deserved every beating, every moment of humiliation, every fracture to his heart. Maybe if he'd listened to Ma better, maybe if he'd prostrated himself before her and asked her to not hold back… If he'd just had the courage to tell her to rip out every ounce of darkness without mercy until he was made right… but no. He hadn't. His inability to see the necessity of Ma's coldness towards him had been Modesty's undoing. And everyone else's as well. Ma had been righteous in her hatred. She knew his depravity from the start- rotting him, tainting the children. She just wanted to protect them. Maybe even himself.      

Oh, it was agony, but he had no voice to scream. He was going to go off. Take down the house and everyone in it with him into the void of his hurt. He didn't want to hurt anyone. Stop. Oh God. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name…

The woman gasped awake with a shout.

"Newt!" She yelped.

And all was dark.

*     *    *

Newt gasped awake with a start, crumpled on his back a few paces away from Tina's bed. She knelt at it's edge with her hair in disarray, and her eyes wide in concern. She was an apparition of beauty in her white night gown. As Newt's sorts came back to him, he realized with a jolt that it was indecent for him to see her unkept and showing spots of cold beneath her white shroud. Oh heavens. Newt bolted upright and slapped a hand over his eyes, spots of heat colouring the slashes of his cheekbones.   

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I sleep walk sometimes when…"

He was cut off when the room was suddenly lit by rosy light as Queenie barged into the room sporting a pink housecoat.     

"Tina, I heard you cry out, are you…" she paused for a double take when she registered Newt there.     

"Oh. Hullo Newt."      

Newt gave an awkward wave.      

"Should he be on the floor?" Queenie asked her sister. "What's he done?"      

Tina frowned at her.      

"Oh, no, I was… Tina and I weren't… there was nothing… um." Newt coughed. "I sleep walk. It's gotten me into trouble before, I should have told said something about before."      

Queenie tilted her head at Newt in a way that made Newt feel as though he was caught in nothing but his briefs. Then she giggled and the feeling intensified.      

"That _was_ a bit of trouble! Tina, it's true, this one time…"      

"I'd rather you didn't, please," Newt said to her quickly. But there was no need, for Queenie had stopped in her retelling of one of Newt less dignified moments before he'd even protested. She was instead frowning at Tina, who had mercifully pulled her blanket around herself.      

"You might tell Newt of that," Queenie said.     

Tina shook her head. "I'm sure it was nothing."

"A blind potions master trying to cure himself is an endangered one."

Newt looked between the two girls, he didn't like the sound of that.

"Tina?" he pressed.

"Don't worry-"

"I generally don't."      

"-But when I woke and saw you, your eyes were white."      

"Like an obscurial," Queenie added.      

"Yes, but then your eyes rolled back from your head before you fell, so I'm sure it was just that."      

Tina had moved to sit with her legs over the side of the bed, and pulled the blankets tighter around herself. She chewed the inside of her cheek, unwittingly studying Newts face with a boldness she wouldn't have had if she wasn't otherwise caught in puzzlement.      

Queenie coughed delicately, giving Tina a pointed look.     

"You are the most irksome type of witch," Tina scathed.      

Queenie crossed her arms and Tina rolled her eyes.      

"It was also pitch black in the room, but the power does seem to be out on the street." The street lights flickered on apologetically. "And it was frigid, and yet there were scorching drafts, too. Don't jump to assumptions, though; we've had odd heating issues before." Tina looked concerned.      

Newt pressed his finger into the side of the bridge of his nose. He had a headache. His yead snapped upright as the implications crashed in on him."So, this means that…Credence could be…"      

There was hope. Hope that his failure hadn't killed the tortured youth. He'd tried so hard to get to him on time. He thought that maybe this one he could save. Maybe there would be redemption. But that had been dashed, and it was like watching the Sudanese girl die in his arms all over again. And he'd heard the moans of familiar voices of friends he could not save from death in war. Tears rose to his eyes. Queenie knelt beside him and took his hand. Newt didn't know what to do of that, and immediately tensed. He avoided her eyes.

"Oh, Honey." She said, softly. "It wasn't you. It wasn't. No one could have helped him in his situation better than anyone already there. And since that didn't work, it means he was beyond anyone's help." For some reason, Newt felt a great stab at this, and gripped his chest. Queenie uncurled Newts other hand and gripped them both in hers, trying to draw back Newts gaze. He stared fixedly at a fly away hair on Queenie's head.      

"Don't you dare blame yourself, Mr.Scamander," she said, "For his loss or anyone else's."

Tina stared at her hands as though far away and blinked wetly a couple of times. She cleared her throat and looked down at them both, eyes cleared. "Credence," her voice cracked. Perhaps she also felt some responsibility for what had happened to him. "is dead." Newt felt a flash of anger, and a deep, ancient anguish. "We saw it," she continued,"No one could survive that. But the obscurus itself could have survived. You had the Sudanese girl's obscurus, so it follows that when the host dies, the obscurus doesn't necessarily die."      

"That's different though; an obscurus without a host has to be maintained before long, or else it will perish. The moment we rid the girl of the parasitic magic, we contained it. Otherwise it would have likely starved within mere seconds, but not before lashing out at everything around it."    

Tina stood wearily and crossed the room, still robed in her blankets. "I'll make us all some tea."     

Newt made to take pull his hands from Queenie, but she held fast, looking into the kitchen and keeping him where he was until they heard the splash of water being poured into a kettle. She turned back to him seriously.

"That's not the assumption she's afraid of, Mr.Scamander."      

Newt decided that while Queenie was holding his hands, it would be best not to encourage the use of his first name.      

"She's thinks that Credence's obscurus may have latched to you."


	2. Chapter 2

   "Newt?"  

 A case of particularly violent bed-head gave Newt the appearance of someone who'd just come in from (and thoroughly enjoyed) an electrical storm. The tangled mop of hair fell into his eyes as he looked up from his tea. The floral printed teacups in the apartment were sweet and dainty, and quite small. For this, Newt was grateful, he'd never really enjoyed tea much - too weak - and the loose leaf tea that Tina had made for them tasted like soil, ginger, and smoke.    "

 You're not worried, are you?" Tina asked, and by the crease in the middle of her forehead, it was clear that she was. People worried far too often. To show her as much, Newt gave her a reassuring smile and shook his head.  

 "No, not in the least."  

 A quiet, responding smile broke out on Tina's face. Maybe it was just Newt, but the room seemed aglow with new warmth, as though the lamps in the room had been replaced by natural daylight that soaked into his skin from all sides. And then he felt himself shrinking away, suddenly shy. He had to mentally chastise himself when his shoulders rose up around his ears, reminding himself that he was not an armadillo. It was best to focus on his tea, Newt decided. What a peculiar taste. How he wished it was coffee. The fire breathing Pikebelly would probably like it. He took another thoughtful sip. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't help cough and sputter when the tea's ashy after-taste crashed into his gag reflex.  

 Queenie smiled sympathetically. She reached across the table and tapped his teacup with her wand. The amber liquid turned black, and gave off a rich, bittersweet aroma that was unmistakably coffee. Newt felt a sense of great relief wash over him.  The cup of coffee was completely encompassed by his long, limber fingers. It was a habit he'd picked up from his time in the filth of the trenches before he was sent to work with the dragons. They'd almost always been wet and cold. Homeless men huddled into mud walls dreaming of something hot and homemade to eat. Hot water and on occasion, the treat of tea or coffee that came in care packages had allowed them all a short respite from the cold numb in their hands. With two hands, he would clasp the tin can he used as a mug and hold it to his chest, wrapping as much of himself as possible around the warmth there. Then he would close his eyes, and pretend he was on coffee break during an excursion to study magical creatures with his grandfather.  

 "Thank-you", Newt mumbled into his cup, still coughing. He drained the coffee, desperate to be rid of the taste of dirt and smoke. But the tea had been so strong, even coffee couldn't fully erase the tea's lingering aftertaste.    

"I forget that tea is not quite as soothing for everyone else as it is for me," Tina said apologetically after leaning over the table to see the change of drink.    

Queenie winked at Newt, "Well luckily for some, coffee grounds work as an alternative for tea leaf reading anyway." She seemed oblivious to Tina's dagger-ish glare.      

Newt raised his eyebrows. Diviner and mind reader. That was unheard of.    

"Oh, I'm not that astonishing, honey. It's Tina who does the future telling in our dynamic duo," Queenie said.    

Tina sighed, her secret spent. "It's just a silly trick," she laughed, pink quickly rising to her cheeks and flushing her neck rosy. "Our mother had me practice with tea leaves whenever I needed to take my mind off something. It's become a habit I use to comfort myself when something uncertain is causing trouble," she rolled her eyes, as though admitting a guilty pleasure. "Just for the nostalgia of doing it with my mother as a kid, of course."

"Of course," Newt agreed politely.  

 "Ask her to read for you," Queenie suggested to Newt excitedly. "Maybe we can get the inside scoop on this obscurus problem." 

 Tina drummed her fingers on the dark wood table. "We don't know that there is an obscurus problem, Queenie" Tina countered. 

 "Exactly. Which is where you have a chance to practice your divining abilities, Porpenteeney."  

 Tina smacked a hand over her forehead.  

 "She just thinks she hates that nickname," Queenie said to Newt, grinning. Newt hid his smile behind a nose scratch and a cough.  

 "Honestly," Tina grumbled, settling into her chair crossly, "I must have kicked Mother one too many times in the womb to earn name like Porpentina." She turned to Newt. "I don't put much stock into Divination, just so you know. There are so many variables. A future telling is flippant; it picks one possibility out of hundreds. "  

 "Disclaimer," Queenie whispered to Newt conspiratorially.    

Tina ignored her and shook her hair out behind her imperiously, but glanced down at Newt's cup with her tongue poked into her cheek. "But… on occasion… a telling can give some useful insight into the situation," she said grudgingly.

"Tina hates that she's gifted in Divination," Queenie provided.    

Tina shrugged. "I just wish that I could be gifted in something a little less frivolous."  

"I think that most people would consider divination to be especially useful" Newt said, though his feelings towards divination weren't far from Tina's. A month spent tending to a centaur that he had rescued from a hunting party of Neanderthals had taught him better than to believe that anyone could know the future indefinitely. The only possible exception were demiguise'. But the prospect of hearing what Tina made of his future was certainly intriguing.  

"Mr.Scamander has never had his tea leaves read before, and is really quite curious, Teenie," Queenie said.    

Both Newt and Tina gave Queenie looks of exasperation.    

"Don't be cross, I can't help it!" She bereaved, throwing her hands up in defence. "You two just need to learn how to guard your minds better."            

"Tina, I don't want you to read my future if you don't want to," Newt said.    

Tina took a moment to regard him thoughtfully. "On the condition that no one calls me by any awful nicknames ever again." Tina said, waving her finger at her sister. Queenie made the motion of locking her lips together and throwing away the key.    

"If only," Tina muttered in disbelief, reaching for Newt's cup. She held it close to her chest, turning it this way and that as she studied the coffee grounds slicked to it's bottom.    "Two flowers, connected by intertwining stems. That's the intertwining of two people's fate. Not uncommon, there are many symbols for that type of thing. Hm. I'm not sure what the flowers are, but they could be Monkshood, which represents a relationship of a malicious nature; deadly foes. Or they could be bluebells, which is tricky, because bluebells are a sign of humility, or gratitude, and also associated with an everlasting love. And yet, some people are superstitious that if you hear a bluebell ring, someone dear to you will die."    Newt nodded along. "Right," he said, hoping to sound enlightened. Queenie looked bored.  

 Tina sighed and pushed the cup away, refilling it with fresh and steaming coffee.  

"Well that wasn't terribly telling," she laughed.      

Newt scooped up his teacup. It was boiling hot. Flapping his burned hands, Newt jumped up with a hiss of surprise, his chair screeching in sympathy. It slammed into the ornate cabinetry behind him, knocking down a silver platter. Scalding hot coffee flowed across the table, sending Tina and Queenie to their feet to avoid having their laps burned when it spilled over the table's edge. Tina was already apologizing profusely for not warning him of the coffee's excessive temperature while Queenie cleared up the mess with a flourish of her wand. But Newt was completely engrossed with his hands.    

They'd transformed, glistening with bloody welts, and layers of white scars, like cobwebs streaking across his skin. There was a horrible stabbing sensation on either side of his temple, and Newt felt the floor slam into knees. He vaguely heard Tina and Queenie speaking in alarmed tones above him as unfamiliar memories gripped his body with emotional and physical pain.    

He heard the crack of his own belt whipped against his open palm, slicing through the sensitive skin, bruising muscle, damaging ligaments. It was a sound he felt in his entire being.    

_'Thwack._ ' The sound burst through the air, and the searing burn of it across his hands lanced through his body like jolts of electircity. Every time the belt slashed across his palms the pain of it surprised him anew.  

 ' _Thwack, thwack._ '  He tried to pull his hands away from the vehement abuse that rained down on them, but his wrists were fastened to a rail. Panic welled up inside him, fear pulled at the cords of control he'd used to hog-tie the insidious forces that stormed just beneath his surface. A scream bounced around his chest at the effort of maintaining the knots that kept him together, but the only sound that he allowed was a choking groan.  

Newt shook, cradling his hands. Though the room was brightly lit, he was cast in a heavy cloak of undulating shadow that blurred his edges. With her wand brandished in a menacing manner, Tina circled him like a lioness protecting her pack, looking around with frantic eyes for the source of the darkness.    

"Newt, what's going on, Newt?" she kept asking.    

Queenie had rounded the table. She approached Newt carefully, as though he were a wounded animal, and knelt before him. His eyes snapped up to hers, glowing white, and Queenie flinched as she looked into them, reading all his pain in a single moment. Tears rolled over her cheeks and dripped into her lap, where she clenched and unclenched her hands around her wand.    

"What is it, Queenie?" Tina demanded.    

"Not it…" Queenie gasped, still caught in the white glow of agonized, obscurial eyes, "who. Credence. It's Credence."    

Tina immediately joined Queenie on her knees before Newt, who'd begun to retch. It was as though a transparent mask had been placed over Newt's face, one that melded Newt's features with Credence's. It could only be seen out of the corner of one's eye. Tina set her wand down absently and lifted her hands to his face, passing her thumb over Newt's cheekbones. Newt leaned into her touch, closing his eyes with a shakey intake of breath as she stroked his lop of red mane away from his forehead.    

"Oh, honey." Queenie choked, clasping Newt's shoulder. "Of course we wanted to save you. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness. You shouldn't have been alone through all that. You're not alone, you're one of us, sweetie."    

Blazing white eyes snapped up to Queenie's, and the obscurial bucked his head away from the sisters' touch as though burned. The edges of his shadowy cloak seethed.    

"Oh!" Queenie gasped, and crumpled into sobs.    

Lightbulbs popped, leaving two points of blinding white as the only source of light.    

"Newt!" Tina called frantically, one hand grasping for her wand, the other for Queenie's hand.    

There was a muffled thud, and they were left in complete darkness.    

"Lumos!" Tina shouted.    

Newt lay on his side, eyes closed, all traces of Credence gone from his face. Queenie sobbed into the space between Tina's neck and shoulder while Tina patted her back in a practiced way. But her eyes remained fixed on Newt, who's shoulder's rose and fell in even breaths.    

"No one was there for him," Queenie wailed. "And I told him he was… one of us." She choked out the last of the confession as though that had been the crime of cruelty most incapable of forgiveness. "After everything that the wizarding world did to him…"    

"You didn't know, you can't read everything," Tina reassured her weeping sister, succeeding in detaching herself. She moved to Newt's side and rubbed his shoulder, immediately removing her hand when his eyes fluttered open.    

Newt looked around himself, dazed and confused. He felt groggy, and his head pulsed painfully. All his joints ached, as though invisible forces had tried to separate and then compress them. Worst of all, the aftertaste of the tea was back.    

"Mary-Lou, where…" he winced, and rubbed his temple as he sat up. "What's wrong with Queenie?" He asked Tina.    

Queenie gave a heart-broken wail.    

"She read you when Credence had you and then she said something that he took badly. She'll be alright. Are you okay?"    

Newt examined his hands, relieved to see only the scars and calluses that belonged to his own past experiences.    

"Everything seems to be in order," he answered, and hoped that he sounded sure of himself. "Erm. What happened, exactly? My recollection might be a bit different than yours."    

"I don't know. You were burned by the coffee, and then you were on the ground, as though in a fit, or something. You… you looked strange. Different. A bit like Credence, to be honest. And your eyes were white."    

"I thought I was being hit by a belt. It was Credence's memory, triggered by burning my hands, I think. That's where Mary-Lou hit him."    

Tina nodded.    

"I am so sorry," Queenie whimpered through her hands.    

Newt turned to her, he wasn't sure why she was apologizing to him. When she looked up and met his eyes, he felt an unfamiliar part of himself reaching out for the apology while another part of that self turned away from it in disgust. He gasped, and dragged his eyes away; whatever Queenie was doing in his head, it hurt. His gaze fell on the silver platter that had fallen from the cabinet. Newt's body went rigid. In the platter's mirror, he watched as his eyes transformed from the colour of burned caramels back to their original blue-green.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang waits for developments.

    In the following days, Newt encouraged Tina and Queenie to go about weekly routine as though nothing had changed. Reinstated as an auror, Tina worked part time with MACUSA and Queenie continued her secretarial job. There was little to be done about Newt's slipping into an Obscurial existence. All they could do was ride it out in wait for further developments that might give them some inkling of where their next steps should take them.  It was frustrating, to say the least. Newt felt his health fading, falling into categories held for the symptoms of an Obsurial child.  
    These symptoms he kept careful record of, and to them added the memory lapses and random surges of emotion that were either unnatural for Newt's character, or out of context. For instance, when he'd passed a misty alleyway that he'd never been down before, he felt a sudden and unexplainable pang of deep betrayal.  Another time, a young girl with long strawberry blonde hair had smiled wearily at him as they passed one another on the sidewalk, and Newt was nearly overcome by the sense of loss and guilt that crashed into him. These emotional attacks often caught him off guard. They made him clumsy. He came out of these attacks dazed and slow to react to his environment. This was more than a little problematic in the suitcase, where lapse of reflex or the wrong approach to a detonative situation could cost him his life, or worse, the life of one of his wards.  
    Dougal, resident nanny, had taken to following him around, showering him with more affection than Newt ever experienced from the demiguise. It was sweet, and probably necessary (the latter Newt thought with some reluctance). As mischievous as Dougal was, Newt believed that the demiguise wanted to ensure that Newt was safe from himself. He trusted that Dougal's premonition abilities would keep him from being triggered into one his symptoms at the more inconvenient, life threatening times.  If he were to take on even a quarter of the the powerful form that Credence had during his rage fueled rampage on New York, the suitcase and its inhabitants would likely not survive. So, when Dougal nudged him this way or that, or suddenly put his hands over Newt's eyes, or, strangely, encouraged him to sing at the top of his lungs, Newt obliged. The last of these had brought Tina into the suitcase in a state of great alarm, fearing that a creature or the obscurus had gotten a hold of him and was torturing him into insanity. Mortified, and abashed for putting Tina in a state, Newt had to explain the bloodcurdling noises he'd made, and suffer her hilarity afterwards.  It was after this event that Newt thought maybe Dougal was also toying with him.  
    "That was great of you." Newt muttered to the demiguise once Tina had left, giggling all the way, to busy herself with the mooncalves. Theirs seemed her favourite tent to visit.  
    "Rescued you from being worn as a cloak, didn't I?"  
    Dougal snatched a woodlice away from an unsuspecting bow truckle and put it up his nose.  
    Newt squinted at him. " ' _The demiguise, a dignified creature,_ ' that's what I wrote of you."  
    It was only when Newt had failed to cast a powerful enough shield charm between himself and an enraged nundu (who'd accidentally stabbed himself with his own quill), that Newt was struck by the severity of his condition. In his medicinal hut, dabbing the antidote to the nundu's poison onto his stinging cheek and chest, Newt took a moment to gaze at himself in the mirror. The care for his creatures required him to be able to cast powerful spells. How was he going to be able to protect them all when he couldn't even put up a good shield charm? Suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion, Newt grasped the sink dials with both hands, head hanging as he arced over the pewter basin in a way that made the scars on his back stretch and shine white in the lamplight. For a moment, his vision darkened and spotted.  
    Ah, there was the problem: he was just tired. That's all it was. It was far too soon for Credence's obscurus to be sapping his magic anyways. Far too soon. But of course, a resigned voice said in the back of his mind, the obscurus had already matured past its expiration date before it had set upon him as its next host; it only made sense that symptoms were accelerated.  
    "What do we do now, Credence?" Newt asked himself in the mirror. Some detached emotion that he couldn't place rose up in his chest, and then faded, seemingly spent with the effort of response.  
    "Please, just a hint of an idea what to do. I have friends who are counting on me. Are you…are you listening? I just can't let you take me."  He said this as gently as he could.  
    Newt felt no other response besides his own embarrassment. He looked up at the hatch in the ceiling of the suitcase, as though it would tell him whether or not someone was listening on the other side. It gave away nothing. Newt met the gaze of his reflection again.  
    "Just tell me how to help you. If you're still there."  
     It was with an odd mix of dread and hope that he watched for a sign of Credence in his features. He  didn't really have any expectations, but he hoped dimly that Credence might do something to show that he was there, that he was trying, that he was on Newt's side. That would at least allow a chance of communication and understanding between himself and the sickly, bitter magic twisting inside of him. Now if it was only the obscurus which plagued Newt, an obscurus which was strong enough to hold onto the memories of its host and move onto another, that would be… trickier. One could not reason with magic itself, violent magic especially. Or could they?  
    All efforts forgotten in trying to find Credence, Newt reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve a palm sized, and very worn notebook. He flipped through detailed field notes and illustrations, many of which had been soiled with dirt or containing accidentally pressed plants and insects which had fallen into the pages while he worked. Scrawling across one of the few blank pages of his notebook, he hastily wrote his musings before they could be whisked away. Dougal hopped to his shoulder and began noon-time preening.  
    "Thanks, Dougal," Newt mumbled, trying hard not to sound too despondent.  
    It happened during lunch, after Newt had finished settling a dispute between the occamies and niffler who'd entered their nest uninvited to smuggle out a shard of silver egg. The chores of the case complete, they gathered by the supplies wagon for tea, coffee, and leftovers of Queenie's delicious rotisserie chicken over slabs of toasted bread and butter. Over the table they swapped articles from the New York Ghost back and forth between them.  
    Queenie gave scoffing 'pah' and slapped the newspaper. "Ohh. Listen to this humbug! ' _Since the events of the obscurial attack in New York's Downtown centre, stricter regulations and penalties will be drawn up concerning no-mag and wizarding relations.'_ It's not like they can help being non-magical! We're all just the same in the end, aren't we? Surely it would be safe for non-magical friends to know about the magical world."  
    She looked very put-out, and a little red around the eyes. Tina watched her sister with badly veiled sympathy.  
    "Yes, I miss him, but we all do. I'm fine, Tina."  
    It did feel like there was something not quite right around a table of only three. It was too long since they'd all seen Jacob. Newt hoped that Jacob had been able to cash in the Occamie eggs for his bakery without too much trouble. Queenie looked up at him with an expression of delighted surprise.  
     _Please don't_. Newt thought at her. I _t's better left a splendid mystery. Tina might feel conflicted if she knew what with the new regulations._ Queenie went back to her tea, pretending to admire the Bowtruckle tree so that Tina wouldn't catch her odd look of wistfulness.  
    Tina made a tsking noise as she scanned her part of the scattered newspaper. "I've seen the man at work all the time since the incident, yet I still can't not be on edge when he's around. Not after he sentenced us to death and nearly had Credence total New York. Of course it was Grindlewald, but I still get a shudder when we pass."  
    She threw the open page on the table and reached for the one that Queenie had discarded. Newt leaned in to see the article. The article's title, " _MACUSA's Impotent Security Steps Up Tactics_ ", was boldly emblazoned  across the page, and beneath was a large picture of Percival Graves looking up at them crossly. It seemed the paparazzi had interrupted him from signing a document held out by a shy little witch with frizzy hair. Graves was clearly still healing from from his encounters with Grindelwald. His left eye was shaded and puffy. A thin cut traced his cheekbone, also more darkly shaded than the other, his left arm was held in a sling and his hair was quite a bit longer than his usurper's had been. Written in small print underneath this photo was a caption:  
    " _Percival Graves was held kidnapped for thirty days for use in polyjuice potion by the notorious Gillert Grindelwald, now in custody_."  
    Newt sipped thoughtfully at his coffee (which sadly still tasted a bit like smoke), as he examined the beaten face that Grindelwald had stolen to commit his crimes and manipulations. He must have been quite the performer to be able to fool so many practiced aurors when he took the place of a prestigious MACUSA agent in the spotlight. A spasm of pain woke the headache that Newt had been nursing all morning. He flinched and pinched the bridge of his nose. It lasted only a moment. Tina looked up from her paper at him. And then it was back with a mind bending fury.  
    Newt's teacup shattered across the stones, splashing his trousers and Tina's kitten-heeled shoes with glass and coffee. It took Newt's firm hold over his tongue with his teeth to keep from crying out from the suddenness and ferocity with which the headache attacked him.  
    The world spun. In his mind's eye, he watched as Graves healed the horrible cuts and welts slashed across his palms like ugly red ribbons. Newt felt the awful, nauseating press of betrayal as Graves embraced him with tantalizing words, and safe arms. He was such an idiot to believe that someone would ever…  
    Tina put a careful hand on his arm. Newt jumped at the touch and whipped around. He couldn't remember when he'd gotten up from the table. He looked into Tina's scared face. Her wide eyes lingered on the wand that Newt held out defensively. When had that happened? Horrified, Newt dropped his wand and pushed away from her frantically. The rage bubbling up inside of him said that he could not be touched in this moment.  
    "Sorry", Newt managed breathlessly, wrestling the irrational fury into temporary submission. "Please, just a moment."  
    Several mooncalves were scattered and left to chirp in offendedly  in Newt's wake as he hurried to get away. His vision blurred in and out with the angry pulses of his headache. It had expanded to clamour in his ears and streak down his neck. Newt knew nothing, not even his own name, besides that it was essential he isolate himself. The disorientation vision loss caused him to fall against what he assumed was the woodlice barrel. Stumbling along by touch, muscle memory, and moments of clarity, Newt finally fell through the curtains of the winter tent. Snow dampened the knees of his trousers, and stung his buried hands as he waited to be released by the obscurus' vehement aggression. Pressure built inside his skull, and just when Newt though he couldn't bear it any longer, it stopped.      
    The winter tent's wind tousled his hair and blew ice crystals into his eyes. The tree at his side creaked forward, the tent flaps billowed inwards, but all was silent.  A rush of recognition and shock passed through Newt when his eyes fell across the obscurus floating wickedly up to him. It was still encased in its transparent shell, but Newt felt he could hear it whispering, calling him.  
    " _It's me_." He thought to himself, though Newt knew that the one who had felt akin to the obscurus was not himself, but Credence.  
    Newt's hand moved towards the shifting shell of the obscurus as if it had been enchanted to draw him to it. The moment his skin touched the encasement, it's magic disintegrated into droplets and then into nothing at all. The obscurus rushed out and surrounded Newt in a writhing mass of darkness. A tiny figure emerged from the surging, swelling black. Tortured eyes blazed white out from a child's face made strangely mature by its gauntness. Newt's hands reached out. Only they weren't Newt's hands anymore. The scars there were unfamiliar. The skin looked softer, fingers a bit shorter. The childish figure stretched out and grabbed hold of them. There was a blast of powerful, chaotic magic, and then a beam of light.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where you at, Credence?

         "This again. Come on, Newt, Credence - we're right here, you're safe." Tina's voice rang high. She leaned on her knees in front of Newt who sat folded up against the tree, staring straight ahead. White, lacy threads of magic swam in the air around them. They gave off a beautiful, musical, chiming.  
       "I can't get a read on him, his mind is - well, I don't know. Tumbling all around itself. Newt, honey." Queenie lifted his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes. Newt's dull eyes, usually so bright and inquisitive, flickered into focus for a moment, but then glazed over again as if he could not see her. What looked like black sand and veins of blue energy fizzed around his edges in a way similar to that of patterns made by embers eating up paper. Newt's features filled in and out, drifting between his own and Credence's. Their body trembled.  
         "Neither of you lovelies are going to like this much." Queenie said, taking out her wand. "I'm sorry, Newt, honey. I know you hate it when I read your mind." Newt swayed while Tina paced behind her sister, arms clutched around herself.  
        "Hush your fretting, Tina, I can't do this with your anxious energy hanging over me. This could take some time." She closed her eyes, waved her wand in a flourished circle, and then looked deeply into Newt's eyes. They sat this way for a full ten minutes. Tina brought Queenie a mug of hot water. Her younger sister took the mug and cupped it in both hands as though trying to wrap as much of herself around the spot of warmth as possible.  
        "He's gone dumb." Tina murmured, wrapping herself tightly one of the three cloaks she'd brought. "His eyes, they don't hold any thoughts. Like a dog's."  
Without breaking eye contact with Newt, Queenie drained the water quickly, the veins on her forehead sticking out. It was terribly cold in the winter tent, so after Queenie had finished her water, Tina conjured a tiny blue fire inside of the mug.  
         Though Newt's eyes were blank, the space behind them was not. He'd followed the shadow of an entity deep into the dark, and mostly untouched regions of his mind. Those who traveled to such places did not do so for leisure. It was lonely place. Away from the agonies of the world and thoughts that howled and haunted and struck with astonishing accuracy. Huddled in that cage of protection, there was a small, flickering flame of light. Newt was afraid that even the softest sigh of a bumblebee could be the thing that ended the little flame's light. Gutted and killed, just like that. Gingerly, he reached out to the entity. The light stuttered and dimmed. With all his might, New willed the light to take the rope of reassurance and hope he offered out to it. By some miracle, it accepted, and with great effort, Newt pulled the light out from its prison. They were immediately sucked into a typhoon. A storm within the mind that buffeted and tore at them, twisting them this way and that, like kites without a string.  
        "I've found them," Queenie gasped finally.  
Tina rushed forward and came to her knees beside her sister. "Tell me what's happening.  
        "Oh, they're so confused. Credence is in a state of shock, Newt's trying to calm him. He's looking for a way for both of them to settle around each other - it's too crowded in there for the both of them. They feel my presence in their mind now. Good, they're both focusing on something together. No - Newt, honey, you have to stop resisting me."  
Tina looked back and forth between her sister and the shivering, pulsing man. She took his hands in hers. His skin was crawled between different scars. "We're here," she whispered.  
        "Yes, there!" Queenie exclaimed, and waved her wand around Newt's head.  
Newt choked, gave a long gasp, and slid into Tina's arms as though released from the petrificus spell. After a moment, he pulled back from Tina and looked between the two sisters in confusion, like he was trying to figure out who they were, though he kept a tight hold of Tina's hands. Finally, a look of recognition passed over his face and he eased his aching body against the tree in relief.  
        "Well- that was something, wasn't it." Newt said wearily. Then he frowned.  
        "Credence, it's quite alright. No one is going to put the wizards after you. Her name is Queenie and there's no need for that suspicious attitude, please. She's just done a lot of good for you and I."  
     Queenie's eyes widened as she watched him.  
     Tina squinted at him. "Newt?"  
     "It would seem that Credence has woken up now. I'm speaking with him." A quiet smile lit his lips, and then filled his face. He looked more hopeful than he ever had over the span of the last three weeks. Newt hated to admit it to himself, but had, in fact, been worried.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just moving things along. Speak up, Credence.

       Tina looked at him intensely, willing herself to understand. "Are you saying that right now, at this very moment, you're having a conversation with him?"

  
       "I wouldn't say it's a conversation, but he's right here in my mind. Very much separate from me. But also not. Fascinating. - Don't look so worried, this is good news! Credence and I can work together now. "

  
       "For a second I thought that your stubbornness against mind reading would make me lose sight of you." Queenie said.

  
       Newt winced. "I am sorry about that. It's sort of become instinct around you."

  
       "Rude," Queenite laughed. "But after what you experienced in the war, I can see how that - " she caught Newt's dark expression and blushed pink.

       Tina was paying close attention to whatever had passed between Newt and her sister, but she was obviously trying very hard to look as though she wasn't. The experience with the obscurials had been physically draining as well as mentally draining, and Newt was unsure if he'd be able to stand. It made Credence nervous that they wouldn't be able to defend themselves if the need came for it.

  
       "We don't need to defend ourselves from anything Credence," Newt said aloud. "This is home. We're safe. Nothing wants to hurt us here."  
The Goldstein's watched as Newt's face fell into sympathetic lines.

  
       "What did he say?" Tina whispered.

  
       "He didn't really. But he can't believe me, because he's never experienced safety in home before. Never even really felt like he had a home - just a place to sleep and eat."  
   

    "Animals aren't the only ones to be broken by human fear and misunderstanding." Tina said softly. Newt quickly looked up into her brown, thoughtful eyes and then away.  
   

    Queenie, crouched beside Newt and put his arm around her shoulder. "Come on sugar. Let's get you boys out of the cold."  
    

   Tina helped with Newt's other side, and together, they crunched through the snow and out of the winter tent. The last floating wisp of lacy light followed them through the tent flaps and its sweet singing note gave way to silence as it disintegrated into the air.  
 

      "What do you suppose that was?" Tina asked.  
   

    Newt raised his eyes the to the final threads of light shedding into the bewitched ceiling's night sky and shook his head in wonder. "Maybe the magic from the Sudanese obscurial?"  
    

    _I'm sorry_.

       It was the first time that Credence had spoken to Newt in words. It had been easy enough to translate the foreign ideas, abstract thoughts, and emotions that Newt had taken to be Credence's, and Newt had taken great excitement over being able to understand the visiting mind within his own. The discovery that they could now communicate with concrete language was even more thrilling. Credence shied away from the charged emotion, and Newt made an effort to calm himself, imagining the young man pulling his shoulders to his ears and backing away uncomfortably.

  
       "You did something wonderful for that magic, Credence. Don't be sorry." He could barely keep open his eyes.

  
       _It's not going to hurt anyone?_

  
       "No. Not that magic." Somehow, Newt knew it to be true. The darkness around Credence was still there. Bubbling, roiling and waiting. But there was something else, too. A small flame of light, holding back the dark - a promise of daylight yet to come over a span of endless nights.

  
       Queenie was silent as she listened in on the conversation, and mentally promised Tina that she'd fill her in when there was a good time. The odd tripod stumbled down the paths connecting tents and supply huts until the medical shed came into view. Newt had been so engrossed in his conversation with Credence that he hadn't been completely aware where their destination was.

  
       "Oh, that's actually not necessary." Newt protested politely, "A few minutes to sit with a cup of coffee and some toast and I'll be right as rain. It's just a bit of shock."

       "Please, Mr.Scamander," Tina only called Newt 'Mr.Scamander' when she was cross. "An hour on the cot. You overwork yourself as it is, and I know those shadows underneath your eyes weren't there last month. You need some rest."

       Her bossy tone had been traded in for something gentler, and she looked over at the quiet man with an expression that sang with all the feelings she had for him. Newt's face was pale, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He'd been getting weaker. Just two days ago Tina had seen him perform a tidying spell that caused the rags and dishes in the sink to slap at each other halfheartedly before falling back in exhaustion. They were still dirty, and Newt, not one to cause concern over the seemingly small matter, finished the washing by hand. Newt felt her searching look and met her gaze. Whatever it was he read there caused him to nod begrudgingly.

       "Only an hour," he said, "The creatures need me."

  
       "I've got this, Queenie," Tina said, giving her sister a significant look as she nudged the shed's door open with her knee. Queenie nodded and stepped back, allowing the two some privacy. Something tugged at her skirt, and Queenie looked down to see Dougal the demiguise looking up at her with wise, orb-like eyes.

  
       "Very well, Mr. Demiguise, I trust your judgement." She scooped him up and let him climb around her to hang off her shoulders like a backpack as they wandered back to the supply wagon.

  
       Tina pulled back the sheet of the cot and had Newt lie down. Both of the young men ached to see that her eyes glistened wetly.

  
       "Tina…" Newt began, but was quickly shushed.

       "I don't want to hear it." She paused, seeking control over the tremors in her voice. "I am frightened for you. And confused. And I'm completely justified in feeling that way, so don't tell me that I'm being silly and over-reacting, Mr.Scamander, because though I may not be as stupidly calm as you, I'm not. Over. Reacting."

  
       Newt slowly sat up as Tina sat down in the space next to him as though exhausted herself. While Credence fretted over their close proximity, Newt wondered if that was that the way that Tina perceived his thoughts of her. She clasped her hands and bent over her knees with her elbows on her thighs, her bobbed hair shielding her face. It was disappointing how many people mistook compassion and deeply felt feeling for immaturity. Tina was somebody who had learned to listen to her head first, but also had a very loud, very full heart. Working as an aurora for MACUSA in a mostly man-run world, where suggestions of the heart were encouraged to be silenced, must have been an uphill battle at times. Against Credence's objections, Newt ignored his slight aversion to touch, and took Tina's hand.

       "No. You're not."

       "Don't push us away," Tina sniffed.

       "Alright."

       Hesitantly, Tina leaned back against the rough, wooden wall and rested her head on Newt's shoulder. He smelled of herbs, subtle body odor, and slightly of animal dung and something smokey, but Tina found herself enjoying the natural scents. If someone had told her a couple of weeks ago that the cocktail of smells would grow to be a secret comfort for her, Tina would have laughed. Now she wished she could borrow a couple of Newt's unwashed shirts and use them to replace the expensive lavender scented candles that Queenie put around their room. The thought made Tina blush, and she thanked herself for having the foresight to send her sister out without her. A light sigh rose from Newt, and Tina realized by the steady drop and rise of his chest that he was sleeping, though his grip on her hand remained firm. She continued to sit as she was with Newt's head supported by her own on his shoulder, grateful for the chance to admire his face in the mirror across from them undisturbed. She stared at their reflection a long time, feeling as weary as red eyed girl in the mirror looked.

  
       "Credence?" She asked quietly, not wanting to wake the exhausted man.

       Newt's hand spasmed.

  
       "Please. Just try to keep him safe."

  
       And there came the guilt that she hadn't been able to do the same for the boy with the scarred hands and the scared face.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions to the inhabitants of the suitcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot happens in this chapter. But It's been so long, and I wanted to write/post something. So. Here it is.

Newt dreamt that he was coaxing a sick flower bed of Monkshood and bluebells back into bloom. Slowly, their grey leaves unfurled and greened. Sick, seeded ends dropped their dry pods, and resurrected with soft, new buds. The buds grew and stretched open, singing sweet, pure notes while Newt conducted them with his wand, singing 'terra lira, terra lira'. So engrossed was he in his conducting, that Newt did not  notice the flowers winding around his legs, his torso, and crawling down his arms.

  
     Around him the flowers grew larger, giant, until he was in a forest of blue and green that blocked out the sunlight, while the vines around him grew tighter still. The beautiful, pure notes became a terrible, inhuman howl, and Newt new that it would kill him. This garden of beauty and pain that he had created. But he had to keep going, had to keep the up the music (now a savage roar) and growth of the towering flora.

  
    "You are wonderful," he sang to it, knowing that it was time.

  
    And then it consumed him.

  
    He was alone. There was no light to see by, but Newt knew without a doubt that there was no one else. Not there in his room, perhaps not even in the world. So great was his isolation, that Newt wasn't even sure if he himself existed. Completely blind, Newt went forward. At least, he believed himself to be moving forward. A speck moving through the nothingness. If he had arms, he imagined reaching with them, hoping to touch something, anything that might ground him as the suffocating dark pressed in on him, made his chest burn, and heart slam against his ribcage. And there was this thing, deep, dark, and angry, twisting in his bones, seeping through his pores, looking for escape. It didn't belong. Shouldn't exist. Wrong wrong wrong. Newt hugged himself, trying to keep the thing contained.

  
   _You can control it_. A rich, masculine voice said. _Push it down._

  
 He had a body again. Flowers bloomed from his wrists, coiled through his hair, and climbed up his throat to spill out of his mouth, and strangle him.

  
    Then came a new voice–very young, high, feminine, and speaking a language he did not know, but could understand somehow. _Don't be afraid. Fear is how it gets you._

  
    There was a flash of red, and a twisted, inhuman scream.

* * * * *  
  
    The cot jerked as Newt flung the twisted sheet onto the floor. Staring at the ceiling, and gasping as the last dregs of the dream shed from him, he reoriented himself. It was just a dream. There were no vines, no monsters lurking in his bones, or flowers trying to strangle him, and there was no doubt that he had had a body. His skin was clammy, joints stiff and burning with a deep, hot ache, and his shirt was drenched with sweat. It was just a dream. Canvas creaked as Newt slowly sat up and put a hand against his throbbing head. There was a note sitting atop the counter to his right, and Newt reached for it.      
  
_Newt,_  
_We let you sleep longer than you'd asked, but completed the chores that we could. The thestral you took in last weekend is still too hostile for Queenie or I to attempt chores around. We would feel much better about you, in turn, waiting to approach her with all three of us present in case you should need an extra hand. Don't overtax yourself, I'll be home from work around five, but Queenie will be here._  
_P.S - The Nundu was cranky. Please read to him tonight. It helped last time._  
_Tina_  
  
Underneath that, written in a flowery scroll was another note.  
  
     _Forgive me, I read you and Credence while you slept, and I'm sure that the two of you will be just fine without me, so I went to say hello to Jacob.  Then written smaller, as though an afterthought - Take it slow. I'll bring back pastry - xoxox, Queenie_  
  
  _I'm sorry._

  
    The voice took him by surprise, and Newt carefully arranged his thoughts. "Hullo, Credence. What are you sorry for?"

  
     _You're sick This is how I felt when things started getting worse._

  
    "Before or after the magic took you over?"

  
     _The possession happened later, but not much later._

  
    "And the time between when you forced down the magic and you started getting weak?"

  
_Two… three years. Before that I didn't really understand that it was me doing the -_ Credence paused, stumbling over the word like it was curse word he'd been forbidden to use.

  
    "Magic." Newt encouraged, "It's not a belief, or a choice, or a matter of right and wrong. It simply is, and it's in you."

  
   _Was._

  
    "What do you mean?"

  
   _I'm dead, aren't I? This is my punishment. This is my purgatory before the judgement day comes._ Credence seemed to turn away his thoughts, cutting off full access to the complex burning emotion behind them.

  
    "I don't think you're dead."

  
     _What?_ Shock.

  
    "I'm not sure," Newt began, picking his words slowly as he speculated, "but it might be possible that when the aurors opened fire on you, your magic did what it's been training itself to do. It protected you. Aggressively. I think that it transformed you into an extension of itself, and attached the two of you to my person so that you would survive."

  
    Credence spent some time turning the idea over. _You make it sound as though it's alive. Like it's a person._

  
    "A theory that I'm working on. In my culture, we say that the wand chooses the wizard. Perhaps it is capable of doing more for itself than we are aware."

  
    There was silence on the other end. When Credence spoke again, his thoughts felt hollow and haunted. _The… magic never wanted to protect me._

  
    Newt's heart ached the same way it had when he'd met the Sudanese girl, and watched as her face went white with terror while her magic slithered about her emaciated body like thick, black chains of smoke. "Your magic is still polluted. To live out of harmony with what you are and be forced to tie it up and hide it is so unnatural, so against the soul, it's a wonder that you didn't become sicker. As it were, your magic became infected. I see it as magic becoming rancid, forced into an unnatural state and made unstable, and then seeping out like an angry wound when it's been bumped the wrong way. But what you did with the other obscurus shows us that it's possible to heal."

  
_Would I get my body back?_

  
    It was an interesting question. Credence's magic had acted on instinct. Would it do the same to help Credence regain physical form when it wasn't unstable anymore?

  
     "I'm not entirely sure," Newt said softly after considering the question.  "I believe you'd still exist in some form or another though."

   An unsatisfying answer, but he wasn't going to make promises that might be impossible to keep. Newt had learned well enough the consequences of making that mistake. When he slept, Newt still sometimes heard his dragon's throaty scream, two aching notes that the dragon (nicknamed Kiwi for her deep green scales and New Zealand native birth) had used to greet him during their sessions together. The notes that meant his name to her. The enemy was on the horizon, and Newt had promised the dragon that he'd take care of her and wouldn't abandon her. They'd left Kiwi at the trenches to have holes blown into her by shells. And she'd been screaming for him. Newt's mates had to drag him away, and he'd been discharged from the army under medical grounds. Shells and bullets weren't the only thing that could riddle a man's head with holes.

  
    It was quiet on Credence's end, so Newt stood. The room tilted onto its side, and Newt grasped the counter as he waited for it to right itself. Credence seemed to mentally flinch, and Newt could feel him edging around his thoughts, looking for fear or anger over what Credence had done to him. Newt carefully bent, gathered up the strewn sheet, and laid it over the cot, straightening it's edges, and plumping the pillow. All things casual. Thinking peaceful, gentle thoughts.   

      Credence relaxed until Newt stood before the door, hand raised over the doorknob. The creatures flashed through Newt's mind, dream-like and wavering in and out of focus. Attached to the images was a sense of dread. Credence had been awake as the sisters had helped them back to the shed, but hadn't been entirely cognitive yet. He'd glimpsed the creatures of the case, but hadn't had a chance to register them. Now the warned superstitions that Mary-Lou had drilled into Credence came to mind.

  
    "Are you ready to go out?" Newt asked, hand hovering half-outstretched to the door.

  
     _Those things…_

  
    "Won't hurt us. They're just like any other creature you may have met, just a bit more exotic."

  
    Credence mentally prepared himself, and Newt opened the door. The suitcase was set on the same clock as the outside. Judging by the long shadows and warm light, it was dusk. They'd been asleep a long time. Credence made a correction, it was only Newt who had really slept. As they approached the centre of the case, Credence's thoughts became less tangible, and Newt saw his world through the eyes of someone who'd seen precious little beauty in the world. The case was always place of activity, even when the magicked night laid itself across the little paradise, it was busy. The case's resident pod of lunar cephalopods raced one another above the pens, weaving amongst golden insects, flying beasts, and inverse bubbles of grindylows bumbling about one another.

  
    As Credence caught glimpses of the creatures through the tent flaps, Newt was struck ever more by the wonder of the creatures that he kept. Thanks to the open channel of Credence's mind, for the first time Newt was also able to regard them with some of the same fear and suspicions that others felt for the creatures. It was important to remain healthily cautious around potentially dangerous creatures, but he'd never before been repulsed by the graphorn's tentacle mouth, or thought the Swooping Evil's appetite for brains as repulsive. Newt pushed these ludicrous ideas aside.

  
    "They're just different. Did you know, that a Graphorn mates for life, and will stay in family units until their children find mates, and then travel thousands of miles to gather in family reunions every year?"

  
    Dougal appeared on a low branch above them and held his arms out to Newt. Newt smiled, and helped the Demiguise make himself comfortable at Newt's hip. Newt preened the top of Dougal's head affectionately as Credence mentally distanced himself from the primate. He pointed out the uncompleted, crude carving of something in the tree where Dougal liked to watch the mooncalves perform their jigs. "And Demiguise have been known to create portraits of those they've known who have died, maybe even have yet to die, to remember and mourn them."

  
    Dougal put his head against Newt's chest, and tightened his grip around Newt's waist, as though giving him a hug.

  
    "There's a lot these creatures understand and appreciate that humans neglect to. Don't base your fears off of what they look like, or what the could potentially do. That's the sort of mentality that gave you an obscurus," Newt said gently, checking on the sleeping Occamies. They'd already been fed and sung to, or else they would have been a mad mess.

  
    As Newt visited each tent to check that the Goldstein sister's had completed the chores adequately, Newt told Credence about the creature that resided there, listing off all their amazing talents and fascinating behaviours. The boy listened with rapt attention, if only to know how to survive an encounter with one, not that he had to know in his current condition. But as the creatures peacefully, often affectionately, interacted with Newt, Credence's guard lowered, and he began asking questions. He never actually worded them, or addressed them to Newt, but Newt heard his wondering, and immediately offered up the information. Both were quite enjoying themselves until they heard a high, gristly shriek from across the case. Credence caught on to Newt's broken easy-going nature and tensed.

  
    "It's fine, she's confined in her own pen. I suspect she's just upset about not having free roam of the place yet."

  
   _She?_

  
    "Julia, the Thestral. We took in last week." Newt wasn't sure when he had started calling himself and the Goldsteins 'we'. It was mostly his work, dealing with abused and displaced magical creatures. But Tina and Queenie had taken to helping him more and more. Newt even suspected that they looked forward to it some days.

  
     _You love her._

  
    "Julia? I hardly know her."

  
     _Miss Goldstein. Tina._ There was something different about the way Credence spoke, but the undertone was too subtle to make out. In any case, Newt was so taken aback by the idea that he stumbled. Thankfully Dougal had taken to moving crates around, and had just happened to have placed a crate of eucalyptus leaves where Newt could catch himself with it. Though he caught his shin pretty badly on its corner anyways.

  
    The scream that came from the tent next to them raised the hair on Newt's arms. Normally he wouldn't be phased, but with Credence… well. Rubbing his shin, they peered tentatively through the gap in the flap. The projected landscape was densely treed, and the thick canopy of evergreens held the pen in perpetual state of darkness. A still pool of water amongst the shady moss made a perfect mirror of the underside of the trees–an upside down world of cool blue and green hues. It wasn't ghostly, or even unsettling, though the the place bore a heavy atmosphere. Something solemn - a place for hushed voices. But it was peaceful. There was no sign of movement or unrest. Perhaps Julia was camouflaging into her surroundings with the natural dark, slick skin that thestrals had.

  
    Newt fell back with a shout of surprise as a giant, white-eyed reptilian and equestrian face came up inches from his and gave a blood-chilling scream of rage. Again Dougal's foresight paid off. Rather than sprawling into the dirt, the crate of medicinal smelling leaves gave Newt a cushy landing pad. Newt struggled to pull himself out of the box. His gangly legs hung off the side and his elbows stuck out like he was a work of folded origami as he braced himself against the box edges. Even after giving his head a shake, there were still leaves clinging to the russet tangles in his hair. Credence was practically hyperventilating. Well, he couldn't really. So instead, Newt was practically hyperventilating on account of Credence.

  
    It was with great reluctance on Credence's part that Newt moved towards the thestral's enclosure:  
     _It's going to kill us._  
    "Don't be silly. I'm quite capable of handling myself–"  
     _We were just stuck in a box._  
    "–and thestrals are generally peaceful creatures. We simply haven't been introduced properly"  
     _It was like one of the horses of the seven horsemen._  
    "It's a strange beauty, but beauty none the less. Come now, I think you'll quite like her."  
     _I'm not going in there._  
    "We are, actually."

And they did.


End file.
